


It would almost be poetic, if it wasn't so damn sad.

by Dylanobrienisbatman



Series: Chopped Challenge Fics [7]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Butterflies, Doomed Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Pre-Hunger Games, Star-crossed, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22661779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dylanobrienisbatman/pseuds/Dylanobrienisbatman
Summary: When Raven was chosen as tribute for District Nine, she planned to win. What she didn't plan on was a kind, handsome boy from District 1 breaking down walls she barely knew she had built.
Relationships: Wells Jaha/Raven Reyes
Series: Chopped Challenge Fics [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1652851
Comments: 16
Kudos: 14
Collections: Chopped: Choose Your Own Adventure





	It would almost be poetic, if it wasn't so damn sad.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a quick little fic I threw together for Chopped: Choose your own adventure! My tropes and themes are: 
> 
> Theme - Dystopian  
> Trope 1 - Hunger Games AU  
> Trope 2 - Enemies to Friends to Lovers  
> Trope 3 - Butterflies  
> Trope 4 - First Kiss

Raven Reyes never expected the sound of her own name to make her want to vomit, but when that woman's stupid gloved hand grabbed her name from the bowl and read it allowed, she almost hurled all over her best shoes. She hadn't, which was the important bit, but she could still remember the feeling of her stomach rising up into her throat at the sound of the name spoken so lovingly by her sister Echo just hours before. Now, as she lay in the nicest, softest bed she'd ever seen in the Tribute housing in The Capital, she wondered if it had ever gone back down.

The Hunger Games.

In less than two weeks, she would be sent into an arena where 23 other kids and the very ground she walked on would all be trying to kill her, her only hope to kill them before they killed her. In less than two weeks, she'd stare down the face of death. And after that?

She'd win.

She set her jaw, got up, and went to train.

~

It was just barely 4 in the morning, so she had expected to have the tribute training facility all to herself, but, to her unpleasant surprise, there was already a boy there, running on a treadmill in the corner.

Wells Jaha. Tribute from District 1, A Career. He was the son of some politician or jewel maker or something, some important man from his district, and he had been trained his whole life for these games. She didn't know much about him, but she remembered watching him volunteer, and something about the way he had looked, standing, tall and broad and quiet next to the peppy blonde who had volunteered with him, had caught her interest. In a different place, in a different world, she'd let herself wonder what that meant. In this one, she quietly hoped that he'd tear a tendon or blow an aneurysm from all that running.

She found her way over to the table with the plants, and started reading. She had a photographic memory, and was a certified genius, so she read, and read, and read, logging away the colour and shapes of each plant along with whether she'd be able to eat it or not. She had been reading for almost an hour when a looming shadow crept onto the page.

"You're in my light." She said to him, without looking up.

"Anything interesting?" He asked, his voice softer than she'd expected. She glanced up at him and the nausea subsided for a brief moment, replaced with an uneasy fluttering when their eyes met. He was tall, so tall, and his shoulders were strong against the light that he was interrupting from her page. His dark skin shined with sweat across his muscles, and his smile was easy as he leaned out of the light to let her see. She tried to stop herself from smiling back, but it was no use.

"What do you want?" She asked instead, trying to make herself sound angry.

"Just wanted to say hi, introduce myself." He said, smiling. "Maybe, get to know you." She let out a laugh involuntarily.

"What do you think this is, summer camp?" She asked, incredulous.

"No," He said, his smile never fading, "I just think you're very pretty." And before she could speak, he turned and walked away, leaving her sitting, mouth agape. 

It wasn't another life, but she started to let herself wonder about this Career boy from District 1 who surprised her.

~

The next evening, the Tributes were brought to a television studio to prepare for their interviews with Caeser Flickerman, and Raven felt uneasy in her dress. Her stylist had put her in an unbelievable soft blue velvet dress that clung to every inch of her skin with a neckline that dropped well past her sternum. She had never felt so beautiful, but she had also never felt so on display. She had imagined it, as a kid. Being invited to some fancy party or event, wearing a beautiful dress and feeling pretty. She may not have been like other little girls, with their dolls and such toys, her mother pushing her at an early age to ignore those flights of fancy in favour of her studies, but she still imagined it. But in those dreams, she had been dressed up for herself, and this was for everyone else. So wealthy assholes in clothes that cost as much as three months rent in her shitty 1 bedroom she shared with her mom would deign to spare their money to help her during the games. So she would appeal to supporters, and get a better chance of winning. She tugged the neckline of the dress up just a tad, and closed her eyes, trying to fall into her happy place. 

_She was in Sinclair's engineering lab. She was tinkering with his newest antigravity device. He was bringing her tea, telling her how smart she wa-_

"It's Raven, right?" Said a voice, yanking her from her dream. The introduction began to play in the background, and the daydream faded away entirely as Caeser called Clarke Griffin, the other tribute from District 1.

"It's asshole, right?" She asked in response, turning to look at Wells as he came up from behind to take his place in line. She kicked herself for letting her mouth fall open a bit when she saw him.

He was dressed in a white button up and lovely, well fitted black slacks, and he wore over his broad shoulders the most stunning black and silver coat, with a beautiful swirling pattern that curled across the fabric that fell to his knees. He looked incredible, and she clenched her jaw in response.

"Wells Jaha, actually." He said, unbothered by her, his beautiful smile never faltering, always reaching his eyes. Something about the way he looked at her made her feel brave.

"Raven Reyes, District 9." She responded, cool but compliant.

"I just wanted to say, Raven Reyes, of District 9-"

"And also from district one, WELLS JAHA" Caeser's voice was a booming echo in the stone halls, and Wells took a step back.

"-That I like you. And that you look beautiful in that dress." He walked backwards towards the stairs, turning and stepping out on stage, leaving Raven breathless.

~

Wells' attention only made her want to train harder, her irritation and... lack thereof... making her angry with herself, as if two 30 second conversations were enough to put her behind, to make her lose.

The idea had seemed ridiculous at first, until she lay down to sleep after the interviews and lingered on the thought for far too long, and then it didn't seem so absurd.

So she trained. She studied the botany and learned the survival skills, even learned how to make a bomb from a few of the plants combined. She studied the previous games meticulously, trying to imagine other ways they could use an arena to endanger the tributes. She studied past tributes moves, learning how to dismantle the bombs on the starting pedestals and rewire them and more. She practiced knife throwing on her own time, and tried to learn to shoot arrows, without much luck. When that timer countdown hit zero, she intended to be the most prepared.

It had been just over a week, when Wells approached her again, and she gritted her teeth in irritation as she worked on her knot skills.

"I just wanted to apologise." He said, his voice barely audible over the loud training room. "I didn't mean to be... forward. But I watched you, those first couple of days, and... you're incredible. And you've learned more skills since we got here than anyone else. And you are beautiful, but so far, thats the least impressive thing about you, which is really saying something after that blue dress." He was starting to ramble, and to her own horror, she found it endearing. She decided to try for kind, instead of cold.

"Why on earth would you want to get to know me, Wells Jaha from District 1?" She asked, and he smiled at her mockery.

"Because if this is my last week on earth, I'd like to spend it getting to know the most interest person I've ever met."

Once again, he left her breathless, and she just shook her head, staring at him.

"I like to hang out on the roof sometimes, in the evening. Elevator will take you straight up." He said it as a statement, but Raven knew it was an invitation.

~

The sky was a deep black, but the stars she loved to gaze at back home were missing from the sky, the brilliant lights from the city below too bright to let them peak through the blanket of space. It made her sad, which felt like a strange thing to be sad about. She was still staring up at the smooth black when he spoke up.

"It's pretty shitty, about the stars, but it's still alright up here." He said, and she turned to find him sat up on the edge of the roof, his legs dangling over the side. Tempting fate, cheating death.

"Could just jump." She said, and he laughed.

"Nah, they'd just get some other poor kid. No point in making anyone else's lives miserable while were at it." He said, in a way that made her think he'd probably considered it before.

"Anybody you're going back too?" She asked, in lieu of prying.

"Nope. My best friend is here, but she wont speak to me. I'm only here because she is." He said, and suddenly his face on that podium was perfectly clear. He had volunteered to save her. "She volunteered to spite her mother, and I volunteered to try and protect her. Seems stupid now, but here we are."

She tried to find the words, but everything felt hollow.

"I just got picked." She said instead. He smiled.

"Anybody to go back too?" He asked, but she shook her head.

"Nope. My moms... well." She took a breath, swallowing it back down. "Nope. Nobody."

"Well, aren't we a pair, then." He said, and she couldn't help but smile.

A pair of doomed souls with nothing to cling too but each other.

It would almost be poetic, if it wasn't so damn sad.

They stayed up there late into the night, talking about books and movies and people they couldn't stand, and by the end of the night, she wondered if maybe he could have been her person, in some different life.

~

She went up there with him most nights, when she wasn't too exhausted to stand, when the fear and worry and nerves wouldn't let her sleep. She went up there with him, and it felt like, for just a moment in time, they might be safe from all those things that left her terrified and sleepless. Foolish, and impossible, but it still felt nice to think it.

On the last night before the games, she was sitting up there before he showed up. He climbed up next to her on the roof, slinging one leg over the side and turning to face her. She kept herself facing forward, unwilling or maybe unable to let herself meet his eye. She leaned herself forward, her head almost even with her knees now, staring down below.

"Raven?" He asked, with the lightest hint of concern.

"I've never killed anything before." She said, staring at the lights that blacked out the stars.

"Me either." He answered, patient as ever.

"I wonder if I'll be able to do it."

"I do too." He said, still watching her carefully. "I think that's probably normal."

"Normal." She said, letting her disdain drip from her tongue as she said it. "How the fuck did we end up here." She didn't need an answer, and he didn't give one. They sat in silence for a little while, and she let herself reach over and take his hand, lacing their fingers together.

"I'm fucking terrified." Wells broke the silence with a heavy sigh. "This is so fucked up, I'm fucking terrified."

He started repeating it, over and over, until she had to bring him down off the edge because he had started to shake. She pulled him down, sitting him on the ground and leaning next to him, taking his hand and resting her head on his shoulder.

"Me too." She whispered, like it was a secret only he should be allowed to know.

"You know what?" He asked, and she turned to look at him.

"What?"

"That actually makes me feel a little better." He said, and laughter bubbled up from somewhere deep in her chest, somewhere she thought might have been lost, and once it started, it wouldn't stop. She giggled until it caught on, and he laughed too, until the sky started to turn a pale blue colour and they stood. They kept their fingers laced together as they walked back into the building and onto the elevator. She pushed their floor numbers, and her heart was so loud in her ears she thought it might deafen her. The doors had just closed, when he turned her sharply, tilting her head up with one finger, and kissed her.

The pounding in her ears went away instantly, and a peaceful silence took hold as his soft lips pressed gently against hers. He tipped her chin up with the edge of his pointer finger, and left their other hands together, fingers laced, palms pressed together. He smelled like rosemary, and tasted like peppermint, and she wondered if he had secretly popped a mint when she wasn't looking. Rude of him not to offer her one if this was his plan. Her brain was racing, but he opened his lips a little and caught her bottom lip between them, and her mind quieted of anything but him. She slid her free hand around his waist and up his back, pressing him close to her and holding the kiss, breathing in tandem for this one quiet moment.

The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open just as he pulled back from her, a soft smile on his face.

"It was nice getting to know you, Raven Reyes." He said, smiling. A million thoughts, a million wishes for another minute, for another day, raced through her mind, but the door was beginning to close, and she met his eyes.

"I could have loved you, with a little more time." She said quickly, and his grin would have blinded the sun.

The doors were inches apart, and he just laughed.

"I loved you anyway." He called out, and the door closed on his beautiful brown eyes.

~

**Author's Note:**

> I seriously threw this together with like an hour and a half to go, the idea came to me and i wanted to see what i could do. Its sort of fluffy, but also not? idk. hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> Ravens interview dress is based on this dress : https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4289392/mediaviewer/rm2341163264  
> Wells' interview look is based on this look worn by Michael B Jordan: https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2019/09/8364336/michael-b-jordan-just-mercy


End file.
